Vayeira: In the Beginning There Was Awe

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this shiur to the memory of our holy soldiers: Ephraim ben Liat v’Shmuel, Yosef Malachi ben Dina v’David, Eliyahu Moshe Shlomo ben Sarah v’Shimon, Yosef Chaim ben Rachel v’Eliyahu, Netanel ben Revital v’Elad, Yakir ben Chaya v’Yehoshua.השם יקום דמם, along with all the righteous soldiers who have fallen in this war, protecting Am Yisrael.

May their memory be a blessing, and may our learning of Torah elevate their neshamot and give strength to their families.

One of the verses I find myself quoting often from #ParshatVayeira is #Avraham chiding Avimelech and saying,

רַק אֵין יִרְאַת אֱלֹהִים בַּמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה, וַהֲרָגוּנִי עַל דְּבַר אִשְׁתִּי.

“Surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.” (Bereishit 20:11)

It’s such a powerful statement, regardless of how “moral” or “enlightened” a society claims to be, Avraham says; it cannot truly be trusted if it lacks #YiratElohim—the awe of God. When there’s no sense of something higher, the rules become negotiable. Without awe, even good people can justify terrible things. Avraham cannot even trust that he will not be murdered for his wife Sarah—that basic human decency will restrain another man’s desire.

That line always struck me as Avraham’s sharp moral observation—the first recorded diagnosis of a culture’s spiritual emptiness.

But this year, as I kept reading, I stumbled upon another yir’ah—a second “fear of God” later in the same parsha—and suddenly everything I thought I knew about that first line started to unravel because that second yir’ah shows Avraham himself standing on the other side of the same moral line—knife in hand, ready to kill his son.

At the #Akeidah, an angel calls to Avraham: “Now I know that you are a God-fearing man.” (Bereishit 22:12)

Wait—wasn’t Avraham the one who said that a lack of yir’ah leads to murder? And now, standing on #MountMoriah, he is praised for that very yir’ah as he nearly murders his own son. How can the same quality that once protected life now seem to threaten it?

That contradiction gnawed at me. It forced me to step back and ask: What actually is Yir’ah?Fear? Reverence? Awareness? And why does the Torah choose this word—not ahavah, not faith, not compassion—as the measure of a person’s relationship with God?

To answer, I went back to the beginning—literally, the first three words of the Torah.The Zohar makes a startling claim:

“בראשית ברא אלהים – האי היא מצוה קדמא דכולא וקריא לה יראה ד–י״י. היא תרעא לאתרא דאיהו אמונה.”“‘Bereshit bara Elohim’—this is the first and foremost mitzvah of all, and it is called Yir’at HaShem (the awe of God). It is the gate to the place that is called faith.”(Zohar I 11b, Hakdamat HaZohar 21)

Before “Love your neighbor,” before “Remember the Sabbath,” before there is even a world, there is Yir’ah.Creation itself begins with divine reverence—with Elohim, the Name of judgment, of boundary, of holding back. In the Kabbalistic imagination, God “contracts” His infinite light to make space for the world.That first act of contraction—that pause before expression—is the essence of yir’ah.It’s the understanding that love without boundaries becomes destruction.Every relationship, even between God and creation, begins with the humility to step aside so the other can exist.

Seen through this lens, Avraham’s words to Avimelech take on new meaning.He isn’t accusing the people of Gerar of being immoral; he’s recognizing that they live without boundaries.They believe only in their own power.Without yir’ah—the sense that “I am not the center of the universe”—morality dissolves into convenience.

But later, on Mount Moriah, Avraham’s external critique turns inward. At the Akeidah, the absence of yir’ah he once condemned becomes his personal test.

And here’s what we so often miss: Avraham was already a man of chesed—of overflowing love, generosity, and self-sacrifice. His entire life had been about giving—welcoming strangers, praying for others, teaching compassion.

The test was not whether Avraham would do anything for God. God already knew that he would.The true test was whether a man of love could also learn restraint—whether his devotion could include boundaries, whether he could stop when commanded to stop.

The Zohar (I 11b–12a) describes three levels of Yir’ah:

1. Yir’ah Tata’ah – fear of punishment, the outer layer.

2. Yir’ah de-Rabbah – awe of divine majesty, awareness of God’s greatness.

3. Yir’ah Ila’ah – the highest awe, yir’ah me-ha-ahavah, fear born of love—the trembling intimacy that comes from not wanting to be separated from the Beloved.

Avraham’s journey moves through all three.He begins with moral fear—recognizing that violence follows where awe is absent.He passes through majestic awe—confronting the infinite command of God.And finally, on Mount Moriah, he reaches Yir’ah Ila’ah: awe woven with love, the deepest intimacy possible between human and Divine.He holds the knife—and then, out of reverence for life, he stops.This is not fear of God; it is fear for the relationship.

As the Kedushat Levi teaches:

“עתה ידעתי כי ירא אלהים אתה – עתה נשלמה היראה שבאברהם, שעד עתה היתה יראה בלי דעת, ועתה נקשרה עם הדעת.”“‘Now I know that you are God-fearing’—now the awe within Avraham has been completed; until now it was awe without understanding, and now it is joined with knowledge.” (Kedushat Levi al HaTorah, Vayeira, Lemberg 1798 ed., p. 42)

Avraham’s greatness was not only that he was willing to give everything to God—but that, in the end, he was able to withhold. He finally grasps the lesson hidden in the opening words of creation: holiness begins with restraint—and restraint is the truest form of love.

The people of Gerar were moral in theory, but their morality came from a social contract, not transcendence. Avraham sees through that: a world guided only by reason can justify anything when reason changes.Only Yirat Elohim—the consciousness that life is sacred because it stands before God—can hold the line. In modern language: without awe, ethics has no gravity.

The third and final time Yirat Elohim appears in Bereishit is in Egypt. Yosef, now viceroy, stands before the brothers who sold him and says:“עשו־זאת וחיו כי־אני ירא את־האלהים.” (Bereishit 42:18)

Let’s remember the scene: the once-enslaved boy now rules Egypt; his brothers—the very men who betrayed him—bow before him, unaware of his identity. He holds absolute power over their fate.Yosef’s yir’ah is not trembling; it’s moral clarity. He has every reason to retaliate, but yir’ah frees him from revenge.The Zohar comments:

“אני ירא את־האלהים – האי יראה שלימה היא, דאית בה אהבה.”“‘I fear God’—this is perfect awe, containing love within it.”(Zohar II 88a, Parashat Vayeishev)

Through his suffering, #Yosef has learned that he is not the author of the story. Yir’ah gives him the perspective to see pain as part of a larger divine plan, to say,“You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” (Bereishit 50:20)Avraham’s awe restrained his hand; Yosef’s awe opened his heart.

The mystics insist: Yir’ah hi shoresh hakol—awe is the root of everything. Love expands; awe defines. Without awe, love devours. Without love, awe freezes. The right order is essential: awe first, then love—the vessel before the wine.

Tanya calls yir’ah “the container of love.”In human terms, we might say: before I can love you, I must first respect your separateness." Before I draw close, I must recognize the sacred distance between us. That’s true in marriage, friendship, parenting—and in every encounter with the Divine. Without that initial pause of reverence, even love can become self-serving.

The Zohar begins with yir’ah because creation itself does. Avraham discovers it; Yosef lives it.And we are invited to practice it—to live with that first pause, the awareness that life is not ours to control but ours to honor.

When I read “Bereshit bara Elohim” now, I hear not a chronicle of creation but a quiet command:

“Begin with awe.”

Every act of love, every creation, every relationship begins there—in that breath of humility where we step back, make space, and let the sacred enter.

In modern therapeutic language, yir’ah could be called healthy #boundaries—the capacity to hold space for the other without erasing oneself or consuming them.

In my own work, I often speak about #enmeshment—the opposite of yir’ah. When we are enmeshed, we merge emotionally with others, losing our sense of self. We become reactive rather than responsive, taking responsibility for other people’s emotions instead of our own. True yir’ah invites us to stand apart, to take up our own space, to know where I end and you begin. Only then can love exist without control.

To live with yir’ah means to build relationships where we can say a clear “yes” or “no” without fear—where respect and freedom coexist. Healthy love requires this #sacredD

istance; it’s what allows each person to show up fully without being swallowed by the other.

Yir’ah guards the sacredness of creation—whether the creation of a world, a marriage, or a moment of forgiveness. Without that awe-filled boundary, love itself becomes dangerous.

With it, love becomes divine.

Sources Referenced:Bereishit 20:11; 22:12; 42:18Zohar I 11b (Hakdamat HaZohar 21); Zohar II 88a (Vayeishev)Kedushat Levi Vayeira, Lemberg 1798 ed., p. 42Tanya, Likkutei Amarim ch. 41